Don’t get us wrong, we at HotelCrush love to delegate like the best of them. (Dress hems? Tailor. Driving? Taxi. Cooking? Well…usually take-out.) But there are certain things when absolutely nothing else will do, and that’s when we take matters into our own hands.
- Beauty Treatments: We love the spa, but for moments when we really want to brighten up, we head into the shower with a tub of Bliss’s Blood Orange + White Pepper Sugar Scrub. Exhilaratingly scented and dense with the exfoliating natural alpha hydroxy acids found in sugar cane, we emerge with a new layer of skin, moisturized and back in the game.
- Manicures: We’ve met women who swear by their weekly manicures, but we can’t say we’ve seen the light. Aside from being pricey, a regular manicure degrades quickly and a gel manicure runs at least $10-$15 more. Taking matters into our own hands, we purchased a Thermal Spa professional UV lamp, an Opi Axxium starter kit, and CND Shellac nail colors. We have the methodology refined from years of doing our own nails, with a couple of salon gel manicures to learn from the pros. We’re relieved to not be at the whim of the salon’s color selection (a little too ballet pink for our Vendetta taste), nor do we have that disappointing feeling of "My nail is peeling and it’s only been four days." But the best part? We’re able to prep our hands with sunblock before plunging them into the mini tanning booth of the UV nail lamp, something we’ve never seen at a salon.
- Birthday Cakes: Though we admit to weekly Magnolia trips when we lived in New York ten years ago, with the cupcake, bundt cake, red velvet craze being what it is, we’re relieved to escape such a competitive sport. We don’t need a lot of birthday cake fuss for our birthday, but when it comes to others, we love to do something homemade. Whether it’s five-dozen mini vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting or a chocolate layer cake from scratch, it says "you’re the best" like nothing else.
- Lemonade: This one is very dear to us. We love fresh lemonade as much as we hate the bottled kind (it’s as polarizing as the Coke/Pepsi war). So we are jumping-off-the-couch excited for the lemon tree that will soon be growing in the completely renovated backyard. We’re excited for all of the fresh lemonade, lemonade carbonated with SodaStream, lemonade with vodka, lemonade with strawberries that we can take. Now if we could just get a hold of our sugar intake..
